Let's Talk Sam on screen

Sam is very unpopular and unknown (which is weird when you think of it 'cause he's litteraly the main villain of Hulk, like one of the most famous Marvel character ever but anyway) but everytime he was on screen, he was portrayed by some of the best people out there.

So let's talk about them, let's talk about Sam on screen.

It's not gonna be a long post but you'll need sound so avoid reading this at work maybe.
I really wanted to share Sam's interpretations on screen 'cause it's an important part of Sam's history.
I'm mostly into comics and the comics 616 version of Sam but there's a lot of Sam (the multiverse was a thing way before the MCU !) that are worth mentionning. We'll do video games later (not much to say about them anyway), today we'll focus on some of the best Sam ever written, Sam on screen and the people who gave him a voice (and a face for one of them).

Tim Blake Nelson

Let's start with the obvious, the first and only live action Sam so far, MCU Sam, Tim Blake Nelson. I discovered him through Incredible Hulk but I started loving him through the Ballad of Buster Scruggs and he definitly became my fav actor ever through Old Henry and who most of you know through O'Brother or the recent Watchmen serie. If you're a Guillermo Del Toro fan, you also saw him In Cabinet of Curiosities Lot 36, heard him in Pinocchio and catched a sight of him in Nightmare Alley.

To me it's one of the best Sam possible, I talked about MCU Sam and Tim Blake Nelson longer here so I'm not gonna spend too much time talking about what I said already but definitly a Sam I love to watch and that I can't wait to rediscover again next year. I don't know how Tim Blake Nelson will do as the Leader so I can't say he's perfect yet, though I trust him to do great, but the Sam he did so far was near perfect. We'll talk about that again in the future of course.

I never watched this movie in French, I did to write this post because I thought "when Cap 4 is out I might have to see the French version first so I might as well listen to it" and all I'll say is that I'm not gonna watch Cap 4 in French.
Honestly most characters are great but for Sam (so the most important one to me) it's just... Not it.
No hate against Patrick Béthune, he's a great French voice actor but his voice just doesn't match Tim Blake Nelson's acting, it sounds so off, maybe because I watched the Incredible Hulk so many time that I perfectly know which intonation Tim Blake is using and what he's saying at every frame but it's just too off for me.

Matt Frewer 

Maybe some of you know him already through Max Headroom. He was also in Castlevania recently as the Bishop, he was also in Watchmen (the movie this time) as Moloch.

Matt Frewer voiced Sam in the 1996 Incredible Hulk cartoon (which was the first time ever seeing Sam for a lot of people) and he is the best voice for Sam to me so far. The way he exagerated every Sam's emotion was perfect, his voice matches Sam so well. He's absolutly stunning. In the video I'm putting, Sam's mind was transfered into Hulk's body so he's litteraly losing his mind because Hulk is taking over him, which gives us a larger panel of emotion. You don't hear him having fun or laughing usually in that show and that's something I love 'cause Sam is a character who's either very cold or very "playful" (in a very creepy evil way). But Sam doesn't normally look like this in this show, he has the bald 90s design.

I'll just add a fun fact for French folks, you all know Mark Lesser, he did so many famous voices, of course you know him.
Well, he's Sam voice in the 1996 cartoon.
Couldn't find any French version of Hulk that I can share here so I'm just putting this small compilation for other people who don't know how he sounds like. Sam isn't on that video but his voice doesn't change that much from a character to another.

Jeffrey Combs

If you're into horror with a Frankenstein vibe then you most likely know Jeffrey Combs because he is Herbert West in Re-Animator.

If Matt is the best voice for Sam, Earth Mightiest Heroes Sam was definitly the best Sam we got on screen for now. There's two double episodes featuring him, one in season 1, one in season 2 and in both Jeffrey Combs SLAYED. Sam's speech in Earth Mightiest Heroes is absolutly epic and even people who don't know Sam and don't care about him just loved that moment. It was a pure Sam moment, the writing was great.
He also voices Sam in the Lego games apparently and I never truly noticed that lol

James Arnold Taylor

He did a lot of famous characters that I deeply love. Obi-Wan (animated), Ratchet (Ratchet & Clank) and Tidus from Final Fantasy X.

James Arnold Taylor is the main voice for Sam atm, he has voiced him in every most recent Marvel cartoons. Avengers Assemble, Hulk and the agents of S.M.A.S.H., Ultimate Spider-Man.

Here's an Avengers Assemble because that specific moment is neat lol

I think Avengers Assemble, Hulk and the agents of S.M.A.S.H. and Ultimate Spider-Man are all in the same universe so supposedly these three Leader are the same version even if they all have a very different design but I'll talk about design another time 'cause as someone who LOVES redesigning characters of course I'll have to talk about all the design Sam got.
I'm just waiting for a clear picture of MCU Sam to do that even if apparently he'll have a very casual look.

Yoshihito Sasaki

I don't know him at all, from what I saw he's only voicing minor characters so I don't have anything else from him to share.

He voices the Future Avengers version of Sam, a Japanese Avengers anime with Sam as the main villain (yes, weird but I'm not complaining). He's very, very far from his comics counterpart (and he has brown eyes ?????????? Never do that please) but I kinda like him a lot honestly. For the record I didn't know about him and it's the Monnaie de Paris museum who DMed once to send it to me (that's how famous my love for Sam is).
But anyway, he's a very good Sam, I absolutly love his evil laugh and the use of "waga na wa 我が名は" to introduce himself at the end of the video, which is a very old fashion way to talk to give yourself more importance and sound sophisticated (I don't speak Japanese btw but when it's about Sam I'll make research on anything lol).

Bill Hader

This one is kind of a stretch because it's merely a 2sec cameo but I like Bill Hader a lot so it's enough to mention him haha.

Bill Hader is mostly known for portraying Richie in It chapter 2

As for Sam, he has a very very small cameo in the M.O.D.O.K. show, which is pretty nice btw, do watch it, M.O.D.O.K. is a great character and in fact he was Sam's friend, or at least the closest thing he ever got of a friend. They always said it was pure business but they did care for each others in comics, you see them together again in Spider-Man Ultimate and they have a very, very, very cute relationship in Avengers Academy in which they had a big brother/little brother relationship. Very touching and fun. But anyway, I love their relationship, it's very interesting and it's interesting to see Sam actually enjoying someone's presence.
He's absolutly cunty here and I love that "darling", that's the kind of Sam I enjoy drawing lol

And that's it, there's a few more Sam that I could talk about but they're either way too old or pretty forgetable so I'll stick to these.

When I read Sam in my mind, when I draw him, write him, I either have Matt Frewer or Tim Blake Nelson's voice in my head. For me they're the two closest thing we have to Sam's voice. They did an amazing job with the boy.

For some reason I also imagine him with Willem Butler's voice, this one specifically :

I don't even give a shit about Rasputin (though his song is neat, especially the very end), but idk, it would make a very good Sam voice imo.

And I'm gonna conclude this post with this little evil laugh because I'm a big slut for evil laughing, especially if it's Sam and I think this one specifically is one of the best Sam laugh possible.

We often talk about live action characters and their actor but we don't mention that much voice actors so I wanted to made a post about Sam's voices and the people who could give life to him.

Enjoy~